


My Aerolite Above

by RisingShadows



Series: The only dove I see [2]
Category: 1917 (Movie 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Tom Blake Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-15
Updated: 2020-05-15
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:14:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24168670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingShadows/pseuds/RisingShadows
Summary: You have a child. She is not yours, you do not know whose she is. But you hold her in your arms, feel her shiver against your chest.
Relationships: Lauri/William Schofield's Wife
Series: The only dove I see [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1746046
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	My Aerolite Above

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Bitter Water by the Oh Hellos

You have a child. She is not yours, you do not know whose she is. But you hold her in your arms, feel her shiver against your chest. 

She is small, thin. Quiet. 

She won't be for much longer. No she will be hungry, she will be cold and tired and she will cry. she will cry until someone finds her and quiets her cries. Maybe they will rock her to sleep, maybe they will find the milk she needs.

_ Maybe, maybe, maybe. You have none of these things but this child feels warm in your arms and you look down at her with a reverence in your eyes. _

You have a child in your arms, a babe, and there are soldiers stalking what was once your home and you know you should leave her.

She is not yours and you cannot raise her and if you try you may as well be sentencing her to a slower death. But you cannot, will not, leave this child to starve, to freeze. 

To die.

This is war and you are cold and hungry. You are coated in dirt, your fingers worn and bloody. This child does not deserve this life, the horrors she is trapped in.

But you will not leave her to die, no you clutch her to your chest you shush her cries.

_ You warm her beside the fire, you scrounge what you can to feed yourself and the child. But the child needs milk, and milk you don't have, can't find.  _

You are hungry. 

The child is hungry. 

She always is. She reaches, small hands curling around your fingers. In your hair. She giggles and cries and you hold her to your breast. You watch with wide eyes as she giggles up at you. You watch as she opens her mouth to scream and you are gently as you shush her. 

She is always hungry. For warmth, for milk. And so you hold her to you, press your lips to her forehead. Look down into innocent eyes. You swaddle her in cloth, shush her cries with a desperation you cannot contain. 

She is always hungry. And so are you. 

You are hungry, for warmth, for touch. For company. You are starving and you are afraid and you want what you know you cannot have. You want to walk in the sun, to stand in the open and not fear those men that may be stalking what was once your home. You want a home, a hearth. You want the warmth of another to hold you. The safety of four walls, of a door you know will not break under the weight of the soldiers who haunt your home. 

You want to be. Free, alive, safe. You want and you want and you want even though you know you cannot have. You clutch the child to you and you beg her to live. 

_ You are hungry. You think you will always be hungry. It thrums under your skin, it guides your hands, your thoughts, your actions. You are hungry for anything and everything and you will always want but never have.  _

The Englishman comes in the night, a second one stepping into the firelight behind him. He looks at you and you see something in his eyes, he is afraid and you are afraid and the boy at his side is afraid. But he looks at you and you see hope, dark and dangerous, tempering that fear. 

He looks to you and he holds up his hands and calls them friends and he offers his name. You taste it on your tongue, murmur it in the dark of the shadows that dance across the walls. In the soft glow of the firelight. 

His name is Will and the boy is Tom and in a moment they will leave. They will leave just as you know they will, just as you wish you could. In the moment before then, you listen as they speak and you learn. 

They are searching for Croiselles. They do not promise to come for you, to find you. They do not promise to take you away, to safety, to warmth. But they say they will try. You cannot believe in this. You cannot rely on this desperate hope. Because hope is a double edged blade and you cannot accept it when you do not know that it will come. 

_ They leave and you stand with the child in your arms. They leave and you watch them disappear into the dark. They leave and the man, Will’s, voice echoes in your ears. The child stirs in your arms and all you can think is that she liked him, she listened when he spoke.  _

_ She liked him, and now he is gone.  _

_ They always say children are always the best judge of a mans character.  _

You are hungry again. Only this time, this time you do not know what you crave. You have food, warmth, the child curled in your arms. But there is a different hunger thrumming beneath your skin as you watch the shadows dance on the walls as you shush the child when she stirs. 

It has been two days since the Englishmen came. And two days since they left. 

_ You know what you crave but you cannot accept it. Touch, the warmth of a body beside you. You crave something before you took for granted and you wonder when it was that you realized that you had lost it.  _

“Don’t be afraid.” It’s the younger one that speaks, a boyish smile on his face. Slowly creeping through the same door the Englishmen had left through the first time, his hands extended in front of him as he moves. 

You could laugh. Fear has no hold on you. It is simply another constant. A wraith that follows in your shadow, that pulls at your breath. You stand and it drags at your limbs but cannot move them. You will not let fear control you, it is and you are and nothing can change that. 

They ask if you will come. They offer some small semblance of hope and you clutch at it with desperate hands, bruised fingers. You clutch it to you as you carry the child in your arms and walk just behind them. 

The boy asks to carry her and for a time you refuse. You hold her too you, you tighten your grip. You look at these men, this boy and the one who trails almost in his shadow. Who watches him as you watch him. 

When you reach their camp, they speak again. You do not understand the words but it isn’t difficult to infer what they must be saying. Especially when the two begin to empty their kits. What they had not already offered you pressed into your hands. 

They baby reaches for them and for a moment you stare. Stare at these men, these soldiers. You wonder how they have not lost this warmth in the horror they have been forced to endure. 

_ Before you leave, the Englishman, Will, asks to hold her. You listen as he murmurs the rhyme, as he cradles her head in large hands. As he smiles down at her, as the boy at his side watches with something you cannot name in his eyes.  _

The boy is the one that gives you a map. It is hastily drawn, the words written in awkward French. He holds it out with a smile, and for a moment you stare. At this boy who can smile even in war. At what these men are offering. At the child that you have in your arms once more. 

Hope is a double edged blade, hope is a bayonet against your throat. But now, now with the child still in your arms. The hope you had clutched so closely flickers, flares, burns like the fire that warmed you in the basement. 

_ It warms you in the dark, in the cold of these lands so unfamiliar to you. It warms you as you hold her too you, as you shush her cries as you press your lips to the childs forehead.  _

England is cold. Cold and windswept, rain falling in sheets as you walk. Mud clings to your feet, your calves, your hands. Mud pulls, sucking at your legs as you walk but you cannot stop now. Cannot falter. 

The map is safe, hidden away in the small mostly waterproof satchel the men gave you. Another act of kindness that sets them apart from all you have known in so long. The map itself is wrapped in scraps of cloth to protect it further. You are afraid of what will happen if you lose it. 

That lifeline that draws you towards hope, that lets your legs carry you even as your muscles burn. Even as you shake, from hunger, from exhaustion, from the fear that lingers in your shadow. 

_ You are cold, it is dark. The child cries in your arms and you do not have the strength left to shush her.  _

It takes a month before you stumble to a halt in front of a small house. Just outside of a small town, a massive oak tree towering behind it. 

The men had told you to look for the house with the oak tree when you made it this far. 

There is only one house here with an oak tree. 

There is a light visible in the window where curtains are drawn. 

_ You had ignored the if in the Englishman’s eyes. Had ignored the quiet grief half hidden in the boys.  _

You knock. The child secure in your arms and wait. You steady yourself against the fear that has been your companion for so long. That has sunk its teeth first into your flesh, and then down to the bone. 

The child stirs and you press your lips to her forehead, she is hungry. She is always hungry, and so are you. But that is not important now, not when you are so close. So close to what may be safety, so close to what may be a roof over your head. 

The door opens, and you look on her and you do not know what you see. 

_ She is beautiful.  _

Blue eyes look down at you, crinkling at the edges— with what you can only assume, worry, fear, annoyance— and then she smiles, slow and soft. Her features lit by the dying light behind you, the sun sinking below the horizon. And slowly, carefully, she offers her hand. 

“My name is Elizabeth.” Her voice echoes in your ears. You taste her name on your tongue as you watch her, as she watches you. The smile does not leave her face, her hand does not falter even as you stand. Silent and waiting, for what you cannot name. “The baby is hungry.”

The child is always hungry. 

_ You are always hungry, you wonder if she can see this. If she can feel the hunger that itches at your fingertips, that burns in your blood.  _

You cannot tear your eyes away from her, you cannot look anywhere else. In your arms the child shifts, looks up at this new woman. This new face, and giggles a soft carefree sound. 

You smile, it is slow and painful. As if your muscles have forgotten how, as if you have gone so long without one that it is unfamiliar, foreign. 

You take her hand.

_ Her hand is warm in yours, and for a moment that hunger recedes. Her hand is warm in yours and even though you know you must, for a moment you wish you would never have to let go.  _

You tell her your name, and she sounds it out. Slowly, carefully. It has been so long- since you have had use for it, since you have had reason to claim it- your name on her tongue is a reminder. A gift.

_ You are here, you are here, you are here.  _

She brings you inside, guides you to the small table in what you think is the kitchen. She offers milk, bread, meat you do not care to recognize until you are reaching. Hesitant and careful, this is not yours, you have no right, but you are so hungry. 

She pushes the plate closer, she offers the milk carefully and you know it is for the child. 

You eat with careful hands, watchful of any movement, any danger. You taste the bread, the cheese she offers you on a small plate. You eat and the hunger that nawed at you subsides for a time. 

_ You are warm and full. There are four walls around you, a roof over your head. She offers her hand once more, and this time you do not hesitate to take it.  _

In the morning, you stand outside. The child in your arms. You watch the sun rise, light filtering through the trees. It paints the fields, the houses, the trees, in reds, and golds, and oranges. It is beautiful. 

Like your home used to be. Before the soldiers came. The war. Before you were forced to hide and starve and run. 

_ Her daughters play, outside in the sun without fear and you watch them as they do. You clutch the child to your chest, smile when she gurgles up at you.  _

_ This place is beautiful. But you are still hungry. For a hand in yours, for a body to lay beside. _

It is much later. After you have eaten, the child has been fed. The two daughters sent off to bed. It is dusk when she calls you over to sit by the fire, the child in your arms. “Have you named her?”

_ She is not yours to name. Is not yours to keep. You do not know who should have that right, but she is not yours no matter how you soothe her cries.  _

“I do not know.” It is a whisper. You cannot claim this child and so you cannot name her. The woman, Elizabeth, looks back at you with something sharp in her eyes. Something powerful, even as light and shadows dance across her face. Even as she meets your eyes with her own startling blue. 

“She is yours now.” 

You can not breath. The child stirs and you blink down at bright eyes, rosy cheeks. In front of you, she leans forward. She lays her palm against your shoulder and her touch burns. She seems almost to glow as she looks at you, the fire light glinting beside you. 

“She has survived, she is here. She needs a name.”

She is right. And you are selfish. You have had every chance to name her, but you were afraid. Of losing her, of leaving her. 

In your arms the child giggles and you look down, down in innocent eyes. 

_ You have survived. You have fought, clawed your way through this war. You have carried this child in your arms, on your back, you are the one who carried her from war. She is yours now, she is yours. And so, you may name her.  _

Her name is Angèle. 

_ You whisper her name against her forehead, press your nose into the whisps of hair atop her head. She is yours. There are tears in your eyes, streaking down your cheeks.  _

_ When you look up, Elizabeth is turned away. Studiously watching the fire, a book settled across her lap.  _

You learn English through her. She leads you to the garden, she shows you the flowers, the herbs, the vegetables. You learn English at her knee. After the girls have been sent to bed, in the firelight as she reads the books aloud. You whisper them back, carefully, slowly. You taste them in your mouth, roll them carefully across your tongue. You listen long after you have stopped remembering the words. 

Her voice lulls you. Tempers the hunger, the exhaustion, the fear. 

The first word you learn is her name. The names of her daughters. 

_ Elizabeth, Rose, Anna.  _

They feel strange in your mouth. It has been so long since you have had anyone to call by name. It is foreign to call and hear a response in return. To know that there are others within the house. 

That you are not the only one that will stumble to your feet from the small cot she has given you when you hear Angèle begin to cry. It is like clockwork, every morning when she is hungry every afternoon when she is tired. 

You wake to the hunger in your bones, to her cries as she begins. You stumble to your feet, you look and you see Elizabeth. Awake already. Immaculate as always. Lifting Angèle from the crib as you stand and watch. 

_ The dawn light illuminates her, the child in her arms, and she is ethereal, otherworldly.  _

_ You are hungry and you want what you can not have. But that is always how you have been. Even war has not changed this.  _

You learn to ask. First through gestures, your hand pointing at the bread, the cheese, the milk. And then you begin to learn the words you must use. You sound them out on your tongue, slowly, carefully.

Some meanings you find are lost in translation. 

_ Sometimes, you do not know the word for what you want. For the hunger that burns under your skin, that itches at your fingertips. You watch her laugh, watch her eyes light up. You watch her and you want and it burns somewhere deep within you.  _

She always tries her best to answer.

_ You want to ask for something you can’t name. You are starving but this time, it is not food your body craves. It is not warmth, not quite.  _

_ You are starving, for a body to lay beside, for arms that will hold you. For the feeling of skin against skin. You are starving and you wonder if she can see it. Can feel the hunger that burns beneath your skin every time your hands touch.  _

You go to her. It is late, the sky is dark. The children, all three of them, are asleep. Elizabeth is alone, a book in her lap, a glass of wine on the table beside her. 

You go to her and offer your hands and wait. Just as she did when she first welcomed you into this house. Just as she did when she first saw you, terrified, starving. Desperate for anything she was willing to offer.

_ She takes your hands and your breath catches in your throat, burns in your lungs. Your hands are tight around hers. She is warm, and so so close.  _

You lean in, but it is her that completes it. Her lips soft against your own, her hair tickling your cheek as you draw away. 

She pulls, light but insistent and you follow in her shadow. Watching as the light dances across her back, as she pauses just long enough to damp out the fire before she pulls you to her bed. 

_ The question itches at the back of your throat, you should ask. But you are starving and you are afraid.  _

_ She sees the question anyways. Reads it on your face, in your eyes.  _

“He won’t mind.”

_ It is a whisper but it is enough.  _

“Do you want this?”

_ You do not think you have ever wanted something more than you do in this moment.  _

You nod. Watch the light of the candle flicker across her eyes. You lean, slowly, carefully, offering her this last chance to refuse. 

_ She presses her lips against your own and pulls you in. You are wrapped in her sheets, you are wrapped in her arms. You feel her skin against your hands, her breath against your ear. _

She will wake you in the morning, slowly tracing across your cheeks, your jawline, the curve of your brows. She will press her lips to yours and cup your face in her hands. 

_ You will want more, you will want to wind your arms around her waist but you can hear the girls in the other room. Can hear Angèle beginning to cry in the crib. _

This time, you are the teacher. Elizabeth learns French with you pressed against her knee. A book in her lap, her voice ringing in your ears as you murmur each line back to her. As you listen to her stumble over the pronunciation, slowly, carefully. Her brows furrowed in concentration as the words twist her tongue. 

She begins with an old book, one that she used when she was the teacher. Poetry you have long since committed to memory as well as you could. And then she moves on, until she has read each book on the bookshelf with you murmuring the translations against her skin. 

In the mornings, you guide the girls, Rose and Anna, through the garden. Through each flower and herb their mother taught you the translation of. You listen as they stumble over each word the corrections already rising on your tongue. 

_ You sit beside her as she reads the letters from the Englishman who sent you here, Will _ .  _ Sometimes, she asks you to translate them. Sometimes, he mentions the boy in his letters, you wonder if he still looks at him in quite the same way.  _

You ask her for paper, for a pen. And you find that words are hard to come by. Even now, when you speak the same language you struggle to find what you would like to say. What you would like to tell them.

_ You gave me hope, you gave me life. But that is not quite correct. They did not give you anything more than the food in their kits, the map the boy drew.  _

You write long into the night, long after Elizabeth has retired. You write and you wonder and you blink down at the paper. You think back to the letters Elizabeth has read you, has asked you to read. 

_ In the end, the letter is far shorter than you wanted. But the words are simple, certain. Concise. They will understand you think. The Englishman, Will, will know. And you think, that is enough.  _

Elizabeth sends the letter with her next one. When the next letter arrives, there is one for you. 

She takes you to the market. Lets you wander the stalls, running your fingers over fruit, and vegetables. The girls chatter at your sides and you see no reason not to indulge them. To look down as they point and they argue. 

The girls drag you from the market with wide smiles, giggling up at you as you wander the small town. There is a church, so similar and yet so different from the one you knew. From home. 

_ This one has not burned. This one has not fallen to ruin. This one has no holes in its walls.  _

For a time, you look at it. The girls chattering behind you. For a time, you stand and it is as if you have never looked before. Have never looked at this place so foreign and yet so similar. At the home you left behind, with shattered walls and broken doors. 

_ The church wasn’t on fire when you left. It had long since burned itself out. But you could still taste the ash in the air if you walked close enough.  _

You return to the market and wander some more, until Elizabeth finds you hours later. A smile tugging at your lips, Rose clutching at your dress as Anna wanders just a little behind you. 

That night, that night she presses a book into your hands. 

_ Les Misérables.  _ Your fingers tracing carefully over the words. There are tears in your eyes, dripping down your cheeks. She is smiling. 

She tells you it’s been a year, or close enough and you wonder when you stopped counting the days you had been here. When you stopped wondering how long it would be until you were expected to move on. 

You reach out, you pull her in, in, in. Until she is pressed against you, until you can press your lips to hers. 

_ You are quiet, so, so quiet. But there is no fear in this silence, no desperate terror. No, you taste wine on your tongue, on her lips. You feel her fingers thread through your hair as your cup her face in your hands.  _

_ You wonder if this is love. You think it might be.  _

In the morning she greets you with stumbling French and even as you laugh, as you correct her, you can feel tears filling your eyes. The book is still on the table, open to a random page as you run your fingers over the text. 

At night, you settle beside her chair as you always do. The book propped open on your lap and you see the surprise in her eyes as you read the first line. As you translate the book, slowly. Listening to her as she repeats what words she remembers. 

The war ends in November.

You wait. You aren’t quite certain what you are waiting for. The soldiers perhaps. The end to what you have. 

_ That isn’t quite right. Elizabeth has made it clear, this is your home now.  _

_ But this was his home first, and the letters do not stall the fear that drifts through you.  _

Elizabeth is the one that opens the door, two faces looking back at her. You can read the exhaustion in the slump of their shoulders. The grief in the lines of their faces. The girls cry first, Rose pressed against Will’s chest. Anna curled against the boy, Tom. There are tears in both soldiers' eyes. 

There are tears in Elizabeths’ as well. 

You hold Angèle in your arms and wait for them to see you. To speak to you. Tom is the first to look at you, to slowly close the distance. He asks to hold her, and you see no reason to refuse. Watching as he clutches her to him, as he blinks down at the curls of hair atop her head. 

When the tears start down his cheeks you understand. 

They say they were lucky. In a way they were. But they were stolen, stolen and changed, stolen and broken. Just as you were. 

_ You are tempted, to reach out, to touch them. To feel their warmth beneath your hands and know they are here.  _

Will asks about your letters, if you received his in return and you nod. He smiles back at you, a slow broken thing. He reaches out and when you take his hand he breathes easier. Tom pressed against his side, Angèle in his arms. 

_ You wake in the morning with Elizabeth’s hand in your hair. Your head resting on Will’s shoulder.  _

_ Tom’s hand is wrapped around yours.  _

_ You remember how he looked at Will, how Will looked at him.  _

_ You think you know what love is. You think you aren’t quite so hungry anymore.  _

**Author's Note:**

> And Lauri's POV is complete! It ended up nearly 2k more than Elizabeth's on accident. Yet again this style is really different than anything I usually do, but it was a lot of fun. I mixed it up occasionally but I think I caught all of those and fixed them. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!
> 
> Elizabeth only shows up in a picture and one line, which is written on the back of said picture and not even said out loud, but she owns my whole heart.


End file.
